>>I really appreciate the contributions you make to this forum such as this...

>>

>>The term "venomous" has some nasty connotations associated with it that certainly make MY ears perk up, especially when it comes to legislation that specifies venomous reptiles (i.e., prohibition, permitting, etc). Although Heterodon is not lumped into the category as "hot" (that I assume is a commonly accepted slang term for those reptiles that are truly life threatening), how do we go about separating those "cute little snakes" from ones that can truly put you down or rot a limb off? I am hoping that we can have better term to refer to them as so as to prevent any panic related lumping with the hots, especially by lawmakers.



Thats a very good question and one without an easy answer. They are venomous (as are virtually all other 'colubrids'). However, this should not be confused with dangerous. The vast majority of 'colubrids' are not dangerous despite being venomous. However, each of the 'colubrid' families has dangerous species within it. I think it should be on a genus by genus basis. If a genus has had a species located within with a well documented severe or even lethal envenomation, then entire genus by implication should be regarded as truly venomous. Philodryas is a good example of this, with fatalities having occured from bites. In contrast, the garter snakes have caused only minor localised reactions typically with only one neurotoxic envenomation having been recorded so this genus should be treated as harmless for legislative purposes. It is a process of education and preemptive maneuvers rather than letting the morons at PETA and API dictate the agendas. It is a similar situation to all spiders being venomous but only select ones being able to cause severe envenomations.





>>

>>While I have you on the line...

>>I have been doing a Heterdon literature research lately, and I have been collecting the toxicity related papers going back to Bragg's 1960 paper. From the book, Medical Herpetology (1994), the author cites W.G. Weaver (1965) who claims that vipers evolved from Heterodon and Xenodon. I find this fascinating (largely due to my lack of understanding of true evolutionary relationships, therefore I was suddenly enlightened), hogs are being described as protovipers. What is the modern thinking of this? Do you have an opinion? Should this have an effect on how we categorize them?



That thinking has been shown to be utterly wrong (ditto with the large teeth of Heterodon being used to deflate toads). The Viperidae family was one of the first off the rank amongst the advanced snakes while the Xenondontinae came much later.



Cheers

Bryan
-----
Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry

Deputy Director

Australian Venom Research Unit

University of Melbourne



www.venomdoc.com

[ Show Entire Thread ]